Air Personality (Scott Marsh, Nighthawk, Bagley’s Corner and Other Voices)

I love being on the radio! So I did radio shows on WBFH over the years, some late at night and others at 3 p.m. on Monday. I would try to do what I call community radio as a service to our community and as an example for up and coming broadcasters. And hey, I wanted to have just as much fun being on the air as my students…and I did it for all my fans who tuned in…both of them! (Bowersism)

*The Scott Marsh Mellow Hour (circa 1977): Mellow or soft rock music from 10-11 p.m. Started show with Olivia Newton John’s song Have You Never Been Mellow. Show title was play on words…actually, Scott is my middle name.

*Nighthawk (circa1979): 10-11 p.m. Wednesdays, started show off with Kenny Loggins’s song Nightwatch which is 7:53 long, long enough to get organized before going on the air. The song ends with sounds of wind blowing so I would come on before the song ended and start making a wind sound like I was flying in from the sky…like a hawk…Nighthawk…get it? I would take phone calls and put them on the air live because I didn’t have anyone there at 10 o’clock at night to screen phone calls. Risky, I know, but most of the callers were WBFH Staff members and you know they would never drop an F bomb on the air. Sign off at 11 p.m., get home and go to bed, get some rest before getting up and off to school for my first hour 7:25 a.m. FORB class. Crazy!

*Voices I would do on those late night shows included weatherman Winchell Factor, sports announcer/DJ Dr. Jock (who spoke in a Big 8 Top 40 DJ kind of voice), station engineer Shurewatt Ohms and Boss, the “station manager” who was always yelling at me for screwing up something. There were a few sound effects I could do to spice up the show: wind blowing, dentist drill/air, Biff helicopter (pound on chest ala Les Nessman WKRP), sound of audio tape fast forwarding, speaking into cup “2X2L calling CQ”, cow moo prop (use when talking about Charles Bowers Farm, etc.

*Morning Show. When my wife and I moved to a duplex in Pontiac, I quit doing a late night show and decided to get up early every day and do a morning show before school started. It was the only live morning show the Biff ever had. I’m not a morning person and I decided to let that go after awhile…not sure if anyone missed it.

*FALROT (circa 1982): FALROT was acronym for Friday Afternoon Live Recorded or Taped. The show aired Friday afternoon and consisted of me and several Staff members just having fun being on the radio. I would compare it to the Zoo format many morning shows use.

*PB and Jay (not sure when it aired): We had a time slot to fill one semester so I asked radio pro/Assistant Manager Randy Carr to co-host a show and he agreed. Randy is a true professional with a great sense of humor and a great radio voice. So I was PB, obviously, and Randy was Jay…PB and Jay…get it? (another Bowersism)

*Bagley's Corner is the name of the radio show I hosted on WBFH, Mondays at 3 p.m., circa 2012-2017.  The Biff is Bloomfield Community Radio where Community is our middle name.  Therefore, Bagley's Corner was community radio at it's best (I tried). I focused on events happening in our community.  I'd like to say that I had my finger on the pulse of Bloomfield.

I named the show Bagley's Corner because that was the original name of Bloomfield Hills.  Don't believe me? Google it! Actually, Amasa Bagley built a tavern and inn at the corner of Long Lake Rd. and Woodward and it became a stop for people heading north on the Saginaw Trail (Woodward).  So I talk about things that people are talking about at Bagley's Tavern. Hey, I lived and worked in Bloomfield Hills for 64 years!  I would start the show off with the song Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2 by Emerson, Lake and Palmer (Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, We’re so glad you could attend, Come inside, come inside). Ended show with the song Summer Madness by Kool and the Gang, song used by Alan Almond to close his popular Pillow Talk radio show on WNIC. Side note: I met Alan Almond. He needed to record a tape and contacted us asking if he could use our recording studio. I said SURE! He came in and we talked radio and he got his tape done. Weeks later, he made a donation of $1000 to WBFH…how cool was that? BTW…no one ever saw a photo of Alan Almond and he didn’t make personal appearances. But I know what he looks like!

I also filled in as sports play-by-play/color announcer when needed in the following sports: football, soccer, basketball, hockey, volleyball, baseball and softball. Sometimes I used my name and sometimes I used the air name Pepper Brooks which I stole from the movie Dodgeball…Pepper Brooks was color announcer played by actor Jason Bateman.

Interviewing Barb Radabaugh on Bagley’s Corner, this one in our studios at Lahser.

Calling a football game with my son Eric in the Lahser pressbox.

In our Andover studios before we had to move the entire station to the Lahser location.

Calling the last Andover-Lahser boys basketball game live from Oakland University’s arena.